1st Edition

China Reclaims World Power Status Putting an end to the world America made

By Paolo Urio Copyright 2018
    286 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    286 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Using both Chinese and Western theoretical approaches, this book analyses the strategies implemented by China for reclaiming power in the international domain. Examining domestic measures taken by China to assure its economic and social development, it also considers the strengths and weaknesses of its major international opponent, the US, and analyses their competing approaches to developing power resources and leadership dominance. It studies the foreign policies of both China and the US, first by going back to the historical origins of their ideological foundations and secondly by analysing their power building from the nineteenth century to the Trump and Xi Jinping presidencies. Finally, this book focuses on the One Belt One Road Initiative as China’s response to putting an end to the ‘world America made’ and debates the question of whether China will emerge as a new capitalist country embedded in the liberal capitalist world system, or as an authoritarian state with a socialist market economy, able to change the rules of the international order.

    Providing a comparison of the two major world powers and a comprehensive overview of their relationship, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese politics and international relations, as well as Chinese Studies more generally.

    1. Understanding China's Strategy

    Approaching China from outside and from within

    The silent transformations and the long time

    Market economy and capitalism

    2. Understanding power in the XXI Century’s international relations

    Soft power and smart power, a Weberian critique

    Analysing power: dissymmetry, structure, interactive processes and resources

    The power structure and its five sub-structures

    The means of power: interactive processes and resources

    Elementary interactive processes and elementary resources

    Complex interactive processes and complex resources

    The state, diplomacy, legitimation and coercion

    Analysing power in the XXI century international system

    3. China's strategy: a view from Beijing

    From the Sunzi strategy to the new China’s strategy

    The first contributions of Hu Angang to understand China’s strategy

    Hu’s contribution to the reorientation of China’s strategy towards ‘putting people first’

    Hu Angang’s systematic analysis of China’s strategy to reclaim world power status

    Comparing China’s comprehensive national power with the US

    4. Understanding US’s strategy: How the US became the world hegemon of the XX Century and how it tries to retain this status for the XXI century

    The historical origins of US foreign policy: why it does matter

    The historical origins of US ideology: the ‘Manifest Destiny’ and ‘the end of history’

    The actualization of US ideology: the ‘new end of history’

    From the ‘manifest destiny’ to the ‘indispensable nation’

    Why the indispensable nation is bound to lead the world?

    Setting the rules of the international system

    Realizing ‘expansion’: the importance of economic and military resources

    From religious fundamentalism to democratic and free trade fundamentalism and the identification and demonization of the enemy

    From the Puritans’ ‘end of history’ to the ‘new end of history’.

    Donald Trump’s foreign policy: the end of the ‘end of history’?

    The reactions of neo-conservatives to Donald Trump’s election

    US foreign policy of President Donald TrumpUS foreign policy and geopolitical thinking

    The implementation of US foreign policy toward China

    A very short and factual history of US expansion in the XIX and XX centuries

    US strategy toward China in the XXI century

    5. China’s strategy for reclaiming world power status: putting an end to the ‘world America made’

    The improbable ‘China model’ and the origins of contemporary China’s foreign policy

    The construction of China’s strategy: building power resources

    The One Belt One Road (OBOR) strategy: encircling the world

    The way toward the OBOR

    The OBOR, or China’s grand strategy

    The OBOR and end to the ‘world America made’

    Conclusion: The rise of China and the new international order

    Biography

    Paolo Urio is Professor Emeritus of Public Management at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.